Former Pro Bowl QB delivered blunt Jaxson Dart verdict amid Giants noise

Whether Jaxson Dart is the New York Giants’ next franchise quarterback or not is anyone’s guess -- at least if you ask the analysts and ‘experts’ who get paid to peddle their agenda and play contrarian on TV.

For Giants fans, it couldn’t be more obvious: Dart's the guy. And he proved it once again during their 34-10 win over the Las Vegas Raiders.

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The 22-year-old had one bad game against Minnesota the week before, and the we-need-to-overreact-to-this crowd came crawling out of the woodwork in full force. Thankfully, there are still a few reasonable talking heads who aren’t paid to farm out their opinions, like former two-time Pro Bowl quarterback Trent Green, who said what many Giants fans already know after the game on Sunday:

"I think [Dart] is the guy, I think [the Giants] found their quarterback."

That's not nothing from an 11-year veteran, who's seen and competed against his fair share of the guy. The CBS color commentator played through the Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and Drew Brees era of the early 2000s. Pushing his opinion aside for the sake of argument would be a fool's errand.

Trent Green said what every Giants fan already knew about Jaxson Dart

It's interesting how polarizing the Jaxson Dart conversation has become recently. It's gotten to the point that the rookie can't even enjoy an impressive performance without being thrown into the "But is he truly the guy?" debate.

The Ole Miss standout is firmly in the Rookie of the Year race, completing 63.2% of his passes for 2,042 passing yards, 13 touchdowns, and five interceptions. He's added 455 yards and nine scores on the ground. By all measures, it's been an impressive first year.

For those not sold on Dart yet, the reasoning typically stems from two main points -- his durability concerns and his general lack of consistency, with the injury concerns carrying most of the weight.

Football is a violent sport, and anyone can get hurt at any moment. Yes, he can -- and should -- slide and go out of bounds to avoid the big hits, but bubble wrapping him will only hurt his development. Secondly, of course he's inconsistent. He's been the starter for 11 games, with a receiving room of Wan'Dale Robinson, Darius Slayton, and Isaiah Hodgins, along with the league's toughest schedule.

Furthermore, terrible coaching hires and head-scratching roster construction have inherently put him in a compromised position. If the expectation was that Dart would take over as the starter in Week 4 and lead this team to the playoffs by Week 18, then sure, he's a fraud.

But if expectations weren't something comically unreasonable, like say, earn the starting spot and show flashes of being the next franchise QB, then he's done an incredible job.

It was just last year that Caleb Williams and Drake Maye both struggled to do much of anything as rookies. Fast forward a year, and both QBs have their teams in the playoffs under new head coaches. The G-Men need to find the right coach who will work with the 25th overall pick and not do anything but.

We need to stop moving the goalpost when it's convenient. This wouldn't even be a talking point if the Giants weren't in the conversation for the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 Draft. Still, it's nice to know there are those like Trent Green out there who see the vision and understand it might take more than 11 starts to move on from a promising rookie signal-caller.